Men with good levels of vitamin D avoided heart attacks, and men and women with ample antioxidants had healthy arteries, in two new studies.

Dr. Edward Giovannucci of Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, saw that fatal heart attacks increase in low-lying northern climates during winter and decrease at high altitudes in southern climates during summer, leading him to ask if vitamin D levels play a role. The doctor ranked vitamin D levels in about 1,350 men with an average age of 64. Over a 10-year period, a third of the men had a heart attack or heart disease while two thirds had no heart trouble. After adjusting for differences in diet, lifestyle and family health history, men deficient in vitamin D were more than twice as likely to have had a heart attack as were men with adequate vitamin D levels. Dr. Giovannucci noted that fewer than one-quarter of men overall had enough vitamin D in the blood, and concluded that the findings “add further support that the current dietary requirements of vitamin D need to be increased to have an effect…large enough for potential health benefit.”

In an antioxidant study, doctors noted the link between low antioxidant levels and hardened, thickened arteries or atherosclerosis. Because early atherosclerosis has no symptoms, doctors used ultrasound to measure the thickness of the carotid artery, which supplies blood to the neck and head, and which doctors said could predict heart attack and stroke. Researchers tested 220 men and women, aged 45 to 65, with no history of stroke or carotid artery disease and found that 125 had early carotid atherosclerosis. This group had half the levels of vitamins A, E and lycopene, and one-third the level of beta-carotene in the blood compared to those who were healthy. The doctors concluded that regularly eating foods rich in lycopene and other antioxidant vitamins may slow the progress of atherosclerosis and reduce heart attack and stroke.

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